holy cat Batman!!!

There are a lot of Jewish themes in Joann Sfar’s Rabbi’s Cat. Most themes are presented in a comical way that actually shows issues of Judaism in a humorous way. When the main character, the cat, is able to talk after eating a parrot all heck seems to break lose about an issue that pertain to the Jewish religion, which is presented in a humorous way. The cat is accused of lying to his master about eating the parrot, which in fact is truth, the cat did eat the parrot. After a brief discussion between the cat and his master, the cat is taken to the head Rabbi to see if the cat can have a bar-mitzvah (which is funny). The head Rabbi is a stereotypical rabbi who thinks he is high and mighty and tries to display his power by outwitting the cat, but in actuality he is very contradicting. In one instance, the cat asks the rabbi to “show him a picture of god” (pg 11). The Rabbi tells him that “god is a word” (pg. 11). My question is, how does the rabbi know what God looks like? By saying this, he contradicts himself by first saying “god made man in his own image” (pg 11) and then saying “god is a word” (pg 11). If that were the case wouldn’t human beings be words since god has no image and is a word, according to the Rabbi? I also found it hysterical that the cat convinced the rabbi that he himself is god and that he is “not at all satisfied with his (rabbi) behavior” (pg 13). It was very amusing to then see the rabbi getting on his knees and asking the cat for forgiveness. It’s also somewhat ironic that the rabbi thinks the cat should be drowned after he finds out that the cat is not god. What kind of rabbi would want to kill another creature, especially after the rabbi accuses the cat of being in the wrong because he killed a parrot, and yet, the rabbi wants to kill the cat because of blasphemy; how contradictory. These scenes in the Graphic novel show stereotypes of a mean, contradicting rabbi in an amusing way.